Advertisement targeting scheme in a multicast ABR environment based on throttled ad channel streaming

An apparatus operative in a multicast adaptive bitrate (MABR) streaming network for targeting advertisements, the apparatus comprising:

• an MABR advertisement insertion streamer (MAIS) configured to be initialized with a plurality of multicast source addresses, multicast destination addresses and bitrate information for advertisements channels applicable to MABR media channels on a genre-by-genre basis when the MABR media channels are initially brought up in the MABR streaming network;
• an advertisement control module having an interface configured to communicate with a managed ABR multicast back office node for obtaining, when a subscriber device of a premises gateway coupled to the MABR streaming network tunes to a particular MABR media channel, multicast addresses a group of advertisement channels and associated bitrate information based on the subscriber's demographic profile and genre of a particular MABR media channel, wherein the subscriber device is one or a plurality of multicast subscriber devices including multiple set-top boxes (STBs) served via a premises video pipe managed by the premises gateway;
• and
• one or more processors coupled to the advertisement control module and a persistent memory having program instructions thereon, the one or more processors configured to execute the program instructions for performing:
• after initialization of the MABR streaming network involving the MAIS, monitoring the particular MABR media channel for advertisement insertion markers and advertisement endpoint markers;
• responsive to detecting an advertisement insertion marker in the particular MABR media channel, triggering the MAIS to commence streaming of all multicast advertisement channels applicable to the particular MABR media channel to a plurality of subscribers, including a subscriber using the subscriber device of the premises gateway, wherein each of the multicast advertisement channels is received by the premises gateway as a plurality of segmented MABR advertisement streams having different bitrate representations;
• joining the subscriber device to a specific multicast advertisement channel having a select bitrate representation based on the subscriber demographic profile, whereby the specific multicast advertisement channel rather than the particular MABR media channel is delivered to the subscriber device, wherein the select bitrate representation for the specific multicast advertisement channel is determined responsive to modeling bandwidth allocation of the premises video pipe based on a channel prioritization process taking into account multicast streams of the multiple subscriber devices of the premises;
• when an advertisement endpoint marker or an auto return is reached, discontinuing streaming of the multicast advertisement channels by the MAIS to the plurality of subscribers, including the subscriber using the subscriber device of the premises gateway relative to the particular MABR media channel;
• and
• leaving the specific multicast advertisement channel and joining the subscriber device back to the particular MABR media channel having a select bitrate representation, wherein the select bitrate representation for the particular MABR media channel is determined responsive to modeling bandwidth allocation of the premises video pipe based on a channel prioritization process taking into account multicast streams of the multiple subscriber devices of the premises.